#NewsFlash: Dolly the Sheep Turns 14
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's DustyCooper
Or at least she would be, if she were still alive.
Fourteen years ago today, the world found out about Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal. She was named after Dolly Parton, because a mammary cell was used for the cloning process. Proving that scientists are a pervy bunch of nerds.
I was 13 years old when this happened and I remember it like it was yesterday. Personally, it scared the shit out of me. As a middle schooler with a very overactive imagination who had just discovered a box of 1960s sci-fi books in her dad’s basement, I was sure this meant that by 2007 we’d all be cloning ourselves for extra kidneys and whatnot.
THEN, they euthanize Dolly in 2003 because she developed a fatal lung infection that is common in older sheep. Once they autopsied her, they found out that she had aged at a much faster rate than a regular sheep. WHAT?! All of the 1960s sci-fi stories I had ever read WERE RIGHT. And even though I was old enough to know better, I still had anxiety attacks about my spare body parts clone running around aging twice as fast as me and all of the insane situations we’d get ourselves into, like a deranged Parent Trap.
RIP Dolly. I like to think you made me into the sci-fi nerd that I am today.
I’d like to make a pilgrimage to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburg some day to pay my respects to her stuffed body.